Greetings Permanency Champions,

Permanency Tip of the Week: The Goal of Finding Joy – In Our Permanency Efforts

It is nice to be happy in doing our work; however, the experience of joy is something much deeper, broader and profound than happiness. The ability to find and experience joy in our work can be considered one of the critical protective factors against the risk and impact of secondary trauma. Some potential sources of joy can be that phone call with a permanent connection that went well, the look in the eye of a child who just learned of a new permanent connection and seeing the embrace of a child and their new permanent connection symbolizing that the child finally has a loving family home to call their own. These sources of joy, along with countless others, are important to look for in our work and in the work of our colleagues as we journey along in the search for Permanency for our Youth.

If you follow NBC’s popular series, “The Voice,” you may know the name Kaleb Lee quite well. You may remember him by his incredible rendition of Zac Brown Band’s “Free” (which Kelly Clarkson loved so much, she stole him for her team), for his passionate, home-hitting, country sound, or for his touching adoption story that he shared with “The Voice” audience earlier this season.

The star singer – now in the top 12 of Voice finalists – has a very personal connection with adoption. Not only was Kaleb Lee adopted as a young boy, but he and his wife also adopted their son from Nicaragua. Earlier in the season, the Kentucky native introduced his beautiful family – three children and his wife – to “The Voice” judges and viewers. He credited them as the most inspirational people in his life.

At Adoptions With Love, we admire people like Kaleb, who use their platform to share their stories and spread awareness of adoption. His story is one that is special. Read on to learn more about Kaleb and his adoption story!…

Permanency Related Articles:

Child Welfare Information Gateway – Adapting skills and services to meet the needs of Native American families is an essential aspect of child welfare practice. Tribal child welfare systems can face unique challenges and have unique strengths. Some Tribes maintain their own foster care systems and others partner with State child welfare agencies to recruit families for Native American children in foster care, which allows children to maintain the connections to their birth family and Tribe. The following resources help both States and Tribes understand the dynamics of Tribal child welfare by offering links on how to develop an effective tribal child welfare system, listing where Native American families and Tribes can go for support, and providing guides that help explain family’s rights within the Indian Child Welfare Act and how this Federal policy may impact your work…

Chronicle of Social Change – Foster care is intended to be a short-term solution, while child welfare agencies work to reunify a child with his or her birth parents, place them with a trusted relative or find them a new permanent family. But while they are in foster care, children need someone to love them

unconditionally,

and help them to grow and flourish. Foster parents try to fill that role. Unfortunately, we lose too many of our quality foster families. Nearly half of foster parents quit in their first year of fostering due to lack of support, poor communication with caseworkers, insufficient training to address child’s needs and lack of say in the child’s well-being.

Santa Maria (CA) Times – Human trafficking isn’t just happening a world away. Nearly 300,000 youth in the U.S. are at risk of being sexually exploited, and according to local law enforcement agencies, it’s increasingly discovered right here on the Central Coast. “Human trafficking is an issue anywhere with a freeway and motels,” said Santa Maria Police Lt. Paul Van Meel.

Human trafficking is a form of slavery involving victims who are either sexually exploited or forced to provide labor. In sex trafficking, pimps lure and trap girls and boys, men and women from all walks of life into an existence of prostitution and abuse that often ends in serious trauma or death for the victims…Anywhere there’s access to people that are traveling, it’s now a very common occurrence” …“Because it’s such a widespread problem, it takes a widespread collaborative community to address it.”Top of Form

Allison Davis Maxon – Children in foster care have all experienced varying degrees of abuse, neglect, and multiple placements. They typically have increased social, emotional, and behavioral problems, most often due to their inability to modulate internal affective or feeling states. These children have experienced overwhelming amounts of internal emotional distress at an age when they were ill-equipped to manage their emotional states. The end result is that children in foster care have increased behavioral problems, and these behavioral problems create distress for the families with whom they are living.

We know that punishing these children is ineffective, as punishment does not actively add or teach anything. In fact, when parents use negative reinforcement, it most typically reinforces negative behaviors. What these children most need to learn is how to regulate or manage their internal emotional states. They need to develop the skill of returning to a state of calm after a stressful experience. But how does a child with social and emotional deficits learn these critical life skills? Hired for the job – foster parents who are willing and able to become their foster child’s emotional tutor…

Yes, it is true that children in foster care have been negatively impacted by abuse, neglect and/or multiple disruptions in

attachment

. Children in foster care come to families with social and emotional skill deficits. These deficits create parenting challenges for foster parents. The good news is that children change, grow, and heal within the context of a healing relationship. So now we have another skill to add to the foster parents’ resume. You are hired for the job – emotional tutor.

Please forward this blog, via email and/or social media, to other Permanency Champions and those that could use a healthy dose of Permanency.